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The Click

October 4th - 10th

by Brian Hanson, Oct 4th 2008

Good evening one and all! Before I get too heavily involved in the rest of The Click's regular wonderment, I would personally recommend checking out my NEW personal website, thingofthings.com! It has only one crappy cartoon drawn by yours truly at the moment, but soon it will have a whole cornucopia of stuff and things that I hold dear strewn all about. So keep an eye out.

Also, the death of Toonami? While I was on a brief hiatus? Who plans these things? That is unfortunate to a degree hence unforeseen by mankind. Toonami did more for myself and anime in general than practically anything I could possibly name. And I could name a lot of things out of rote memory, so don't test me. Outlaw Star, Big O, Gundam! Dragon Ball Z! Dragon Ball Z! There are very few things in the realm of pop-culture at the moment that could stand toe-to-toe with Dragon Ball Z, and that is entirely the fault of Toonami. Which is now dead.

For those holding alcoholic beverages in your hands, hold them high for the many storied accomplishments of Toonami. For those who are not, hold a solemn and fervent memory of the joy of Toonami in your head. Be it the storied resurrection of Sailor Moon, the "uncut" Gundam Wing run at midnight every weekday evening, or even the bizarre airing of Blue Submarine #6 at odd hours of the day. Toonami is done, dead, GONE FOREVER. And now we have to deal with a Toonami-less universe. A sad state of affairs this is.

Speaking of a sad state of affairs, nothing quite sets the mood of a depressing decline of the anime industry as a whole like M.D. Geist! If you haven't read Justin Sevakis' recent Buried Garbage column on the storied non-history that is M.D. Geist, then I highly recommend it, because M.D. Geist is immense, irrefutable crap. Especially its' sequel, airing this week on the Sci Fi Channel. Do they think that a piece-of-crap giant robot show from the depths of Central Park Media's back-catalog will garner slipping ratings, especially after the slick and entertaining hour of fun provided by Gurren Lagann? I only hope so, because M.D. Geist is all kinds of terrible wrapped in a brown paper bag, so it's about time it gave something back to society at large.

The Bakugan crew undergoes some kind of life-threatening but also life-strengthening ordeal involving friends and allies and enemies and such. All of this involves collecting cards and toys and such, purchased at your local Toys r' Us location for a mere ten dollars! Meanwhile, for those of you who are accustomed to such things as "cynicism," other joys await below.

This week on Bleach, only available in the United States while Canada deals with some stuff not involved in our complex and yet ridiculous political process, Ichigo fights a new slew of "Bounts" that have the power to suck the souls out of his dearest friends.

Speaking of complex and political processes, Lelouch lets it all hang out as he allows the previously denigrated "Elevens" register as pure "Japanese" folk, until Lelouch's family name and heritage comes into question and political strife once again rears it's ugly head. Ahh, politics.

What is light becomes dark, what is dark becomes light, as Thomas and his Digi-Friends fight the nefarious forces of LoadKnightmon and Leopardmon for control and respect in the Digital World. It's a bit like the the East-Coast West-Coast hip-hop violence of the mid-90's, except sans the social commentary.

A valuable member of the Dinosaur-hunting D-Team loses her most important technological doo-dad; Her cellular phone! The D-Team frantically tries to retrieve it, which of course involves some Dinosaur-related shenanigans and goofiness.

A Girl Who Lures Monsters over to the magical, mystical village out of complete circumstance becomes a target, naturally, of those who hunt said monsters, so a scientific expedition begins. It's all in the science, you see.

Several years have past since the last Gurren Lagann episode I had deemed worthy of merit, and now the crew has matured and grown quite literally - which means the audience for such things has grown more mature and excitable. WHAT WILL HAPPEN? WILL THEY FORM THEIR OWN COMPANY, OR WILL THEY REMAIN UNDER THE FOOT OF THE FICTIONAL WORLD ANIME GOVERNMENT?!?!? (Only the grotesque extraneous punctuation knows for sure!!

I missed this on my impromptu hiatus last week, but IFC TV has acquired the rights to air Hell Girl. Which means that those of you fence-sitting Heaven-and-Hell believing surrogates get to see the dark, animated truth behind these biblical rumors; the "Hell Girl", being a girl sent from Hell to divvy up the ethereal one's greatest work, gathers the souls of the damned to do the bidding of the Lord of Lies while assorted confused dead people attempt to use the Hell Girl to speak to their loved ones and others. And of course using the Hell Girl is in itself a ticket to Hell, so will others use her unique services to speak to the other side? And will I continue to use questions to further my own slow descent into the self-described visions of the seedy afterlife to my own lack-of-advantage? We shall see!

A regular, normal, run-of-the-mill Home Economics class turns into quite the brou-hah-hah involving Mai and her classmates when rumors of her superatural powers become something resembling commonplace. Ain't that always the case?

Balsa attempts to cut off her pursuers in her path, not the least of which is moving her series proper into a timeslot that nobody in their right mind would ever watch without the aid of TiVo; sadly, that doesn't quite remove her from the sort of trouble she is used to, so it's off to the MAGICAL ADULT SWIM SCHEDULING CREW to help her escape from this volatile social predicament. Hint, hint.

Naruto protects his home-ninja-town of Konoha from exploding spells from the villainous villages that lie outside the city walls, which is highly admirable and downright nice. I would not describe many ninjas aside from Naruto as downright nice, so I hope he takes the positive admonishment wherever he can get it.

The Scrapped Princess, she of the world-ending apocalyptic phenomena, searches for an old man named Bergens, whose antics are tangentially tied to a strange ceremony that had been discovered as "fascinating" by the world-destroying cat-girl 15-year-old princess. Sounds like it's worth a shot to me.

Everything Yu-Gi-Oh! related usually finds itself in the same category; rediculous nonsense that I cannot wait to eviscerate with my dull-defined pop-culture wit! Luckily, anything Yu-Gi-Oh! related has become such an easy target that I don't even have to try! Especially when the plot around the new episode revolves around Yusei, the Yugi surrogate, has to reclaim his best card from an impriomptu card-battle from an underling via the internet!

As the Cartoon Network shows no remorse nor sympathy for the now-dead Toonami block of anime-related programming, feel free to revel in the violence and depravity that Batman: Gotham Knight's presence will bring to the American TV Landscape! Including: graphic bullet wounds! Decapitated villains! Harsh violence and more!

It's time to fly back an entire decade to the anime theme songs of yesteryear! What were the coolest openings of 2004?― George Bush Jr. was re-elected, World of Warcraft was launched, but most importantly, a little show called Beet the Vandel Buster stole the hearts of otaku everywhere. The year was 2004, and I'm sure I remember it perfectly. Wait, maybe Beet wasn't the big anime hit of that year. ...

An otaku gets more than he bargained for while applying for his dream job in this 2013 comedy; Theron Martin investigates.― Clever, witty writing and thoughtful execution can turn even a silly concept into something good, and that is exactly what happens with this 12 episode series from the Fall 2013 season. In fact, it turns out so much better than originally expected that its streaming run was my ...

This week's new releases! Plus, three new reviews, including the tasty Yakitate!! Japan, Place to Place, and the third season of The World God Only Knows.― We've got three reviews for you this week. I sank my teeth into the delectable Yakitate!! Japan, while Paul tackled Place to Place and the third season of The World God Only Knows. Jump to this week's reviews: Place to Place Complete Collection ...

Humanity's future hangs in the balance as the powerful and voluptuous Pandora of Chevalier do battle with Earth's ultimate threat. Now they are joined by a new kind of Pandora.― IMG freezing-vibration-logo-b.jpg Humanity's future hangs in the balance as the powerful and voluptuous Pandora of Chevalier do battle with Earth's ultimate threat: the alien invaders known as Nova. Backed by their loyal ma...

The second part of the first season of Sailor Moon is out, but did they manage to fix all those video problems?― Well, they tried. It is apparent that the video quality has risen from the first disastrous release of Sailor Moon put out by Viz, and the untrained eye will mostly notice that in the Blu-Ray images are a bit clearer and the ghosting is less noticeable with the exceptions of the second an...

Nya-tan will enter the Divine Tournament and do what no Eto-musume has done. She will try to win it all!!!― Etotama (Chinese Zodiac Souls) Visit the Official Site › Story Characters Trailer Cast & Staff Gallery Broadcast Begins April 2015 (JST) Key Staff Director: Fumitoshi Oizaki (Romeo X Juliet, Place to Place) Series Composition: Deko Akao (Arakawa Under the Bridge, BlazBlue Alter Memory) Introd...

Food Wars! continues being chock-a-block with cliffhangers and competitions guaranteed to make you reluctant to put the book down once you've started reading.― KFC and IHOP are not going to cut it when you've finished reading this volume of Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma. From breakfasts to tempt even the least enthusiastic morning eater to fried chicken that will make you wish you could pull it out o...

Kumiko Oumae is still on the fence about joining her high school wind ensemble. What will it take to make that sound leap of faith?― Sound! Euphonium (Hibike! Euphonium) Visit the Official Site › Story Characters Trailer Cast & Staff Gallery Broadcast Begins April 2015 (JST) Key Staff Director: Tatsuya Ishihara (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Air, Nichijou-My Ordinary Life ) ) Series Compositio...

First there were catgirls, then maids, then robot girls; presently, we live in the age of the monster girl. Here are seven shining examples of the genre.― Supernatural romantic comedies have a strong, dedicated fanbase among both male and female readers. Commentary on its quality aside, Twilight was immensely popular and shone a light on a new sub-section of young adult novels. Vampire stories, inc...